08.04.2019 | On the occasion of the 90th birthday of its founding director Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. Gotthilf Hempel, the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) organised a scientific colloquium at the Universum Bremen. Guest speakers from Germany and abroad presented examples of international partnerships in marine research. In the subsequent panel, which was attended by high-ranking speakers, the "Bremen Criteria" developed by Gotthilf Hempel were discussed.

Impressions of the scientific colloquium: "International Partnerships in marine ecological research"

Photos: Christian Kosak, ZMT

Since joining the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO in the 1960s, Gotthilf Hempel has been involved in establishing marine science partnerships and has defined them as a central task of ZMT. Based on initial projects in Brazil, the Red Sea and southern Africa, ZMT laid down its cooperation with international research partners in a short set of rules. These "Bremen Criteria" were included in the Code of Conduct of the Society for Tropical Ecology (GTÖ) in 1999. The panel participants discussed how the "Bremen Criteria" developed further and what role scientific partnerships could play in the new German development policy.

Gotthilf Hempel is founding director of the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research in Bremen and the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research in Warnemünde as well as the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven and the Institute for Polar Ecology at the University of Kiel. He has made a major contribution to the development of German marine and polar research and was involved in strengthening marine research in tropical countries for many decades. Today he works as an emeritus professor in Kiel and Bremen and publishes books of marine biology.